CloudCheckr Updates 2014

December 22, 2014

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, December 22, 2014. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Enhancements to AWS Config Alerts
CloudCheckr must now be added to your AWS Config SNS topic to have these alerts delivered in near real-time. You can also filter your AWS Config Alerts by resource tags. Please go here to learn more: https://support.cloudcheckr.com/aws_config_alerts/

Ability to Load AWS Config Snapshots
Under Security > AWS Config you will find a new report named “Configuration Snapshots”. This report allows you to load any of your AWS Config snapshots into CloudCheckr, where their contents can be analyzed and searched.

Filter AWS Config Configuration History by Tag
The AWS Config Configuration History report now has the option to filter the reports data by resource tag. This report is found under the Security > AWS Config menu.

New EC2 RI Purchase Recommendations (by Instance) Current Gen
Within the Cost > Reserved Usage > EC2 menu you will now find a purchase recommendation report specifically designed for the new EC2 reserved instance offerings.

New Resource Tags (from Detailed Billing report)
This new report allows you to see the cost tags that have been published to your AWS detailed billing with resource and tags report. You can find this report under the Cost > AWS Billing menu.

Cost Summary Reports Added to Multi-Account Views
The Cost menu of your Multi-Account Views will not include the Single Day, Single Month, and Historic Monthly Summary reports.

CloudTrail Support for GovCloud
Your GovCloud accounts added to CloudCheckr can now report, and deliver alerts, based on CloudTrail data.

CloudTrail Alerts IP Address Enhancement
The CloudTrail Alert Builder now lets you add a custom IP Range to the alert, including the ability to find IPs NOT in the added range. This provides you the ability to whitelist IP ranges for better alerting.

Improvements To Perimeter Assessment Report
The Perimeter Assessment report now supports additional types of events and offers bot ha CSV and PDF export. This report can be found under the Security menu.

Additional Security Group Reports
CloudCheckr now provides Security Group reporting for EC2 Classic, VPC, RDS, and RedShift. These reports can be found under the Security > Security Group menu.

Improved RDS Reporting
RDS Cost calculations have been improved within the Inventory > RDS menu, and CloudCheckr now retrieves the IP address for publicly accessible RDS DB instances.

Account-Level Email Report Management
Your list of accounts page now has a “Configure Emails” button, where you can manage the emailed reports for all accounts in a single view. NOTE: this button is only available to Admin users.

New Admin-Level API Access Key
Admin-Level Access Keys allow API users to make calls against any of their accounts within CloudCheckr and are needed to make the following calls:

  • account/add_account
  • account/delete_account
  • account/add_user

For details on creating and managing Admin-Level Access Keys go here: https://support.cloudcheckr.com/cloudcheckr-api-userguide/.

New Best Practice Checks

November 11, 2014

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Tuesday, November 11, 2014. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Added instance type filter to EC2 Number of Instances Alert
When creating an alert for the number of EC2 instances in your account, you can now base the alert on specific instance types (m3.small, c3.8xlarge, etc.).

New Perimeter Assessment report
This new report, found under the Security menu, is designed to show you all the entry points from the public Internet into your AWS account.

Added country identification in CloudTrail
When looking at event details within the Events report under CloudTrail you will see a column showing the origin country from the interaction, based on its IP address.

Added Saved Filters for CloudTrail
You can now save your filter and group selections in the CloudTrail Events report. This will prevent you from having to rebuild the same search repeatedly.

Added IAM reports to Multi-Account Views
Multi-Account Views now have IAM reports under the Inventory menu.

Added support for new Frankfurt region in Map Overlay

Added support for multiple CloudTrail Aggregate buckets
In your Multi-Account Views you can now add multiple buckets and/or buckets from multiple accounts where your aggregated CloudTrail logs are stored.

Improvements to the VPC Traffic Analysis report
Additional data points have been added to the VPC Traffic Analysis report, found under the Security > VPC menu.

Improved Service Limits Best Practice check
This check now reports on individual IAM instance type limitations.

Added 5 new Best Practice checks

  • RDS DB Instances With Failover Event
  • RDS DB Instances Running on Default Ports
  • RDS Instances Without Auto Minor Version Upgrade Enabled
  • Publicly Accessible RDS DB Instances
  • S3 Public Dot Directory found

October 30, 2014

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Thursday, October 30, 2014. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Added RedShift Inventory reports for Multi-Account Views
The RedShift Summary and List of Clusters reports are now available within the Inventory menu of Multi-Account Views.

Large exports for EBS volumes enhanced to be sent as an email to the user
If you are trying to generate a CSV export from the EC2 EBS List of Volumes report with more than 1000 volumes, CloudCheckr will now generate that CSV in the background and deliver the export to your inbox.

Process Tag Mapping button added to the Tag Mapping screen
As part of our last update we implemented the ability for users to create their own custom tag mappings. This allows you to roll up cost assigned to multiple tags, reassign costs mistakenly assigned to the wrong resources, and create new tagging structures that do not exist in AWS. For the new mappings to take effect, CloudCheckr must re-proces all of your billing data. You’ll now find a button in the report labeled “Process Tag Mappings” which will run this process for you. You’ll only want to click that button once you have finalized your mappings.
NOTE: re-processing your data can take several hours, depending on the amount of historical billing you have within AWS.

Enhanced VPC Reports
Additional fields have been added to both the VPC Summary and List of VPCs reports. These reports can be found within the Security menu.

New reports for Network ACLs
Under the Security > VPC menu you will now find a Network ACL Summary and List of ACLs report.

New VPC Traffic Analysis report
This new report, found within the Security > VPC menu, will provide insight into the flow of traffic within your VPCs. It will show your Internet Gateways, Router Tables, Network ACL inbound and outbound rules, and much more.

New API functions:

  • get_account_level_tags
  • add_user

New API parameters for get_best_practices

October 20, 2014

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, October 20, 2014. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

New “Pre-configured” CloudTrail Alerts
When creating CloudTrail alerts (within the Alerts > Builder menu) you can now utilize pre-configured alert templates for security-related events, EC2 instances terminated, CloudTrail disabled, plus more.

New enhanced CloudTrail Common Searches
Additional search options have been added to the CloudTrail Common Searches screen. You can now easily find who created/started/stopped/terminated an EC2 instance, as well as find AWS management console login attempts (both successful and failed). Common Searches can be found within the Security > CloudTrail menu.

New AWS Support Cases Summary and List of AWS Support Cases reports
CloudCheckr now provides reports that track both your open, and closed, cases with AWS Support. These reports can be found under the Inventory menu.

New VPC List of Resources report
Under the Security > VPC menu you will now have a VPC List of Resources report, which will list each resource you have running within each of your VPCs, organized by resource type.

Added Change Monitoring report to Multi-View Accounts
The changes across your various AWS accounts can now all be monitored within your Multi-Account View(s). The Change Monitoring report can be found within the Security menu.

Added Grouping to EC2 History by Instance report
The EC2 Instance History by Instance report now supports multiple levels of grouping. This will allow you to see the total number of instances running over a user-defined time frame grouped by Account, Instance ID, AMI, and/or Tag Key. This report can be found within the Inventory > Trending menu.

Large exports enhanced to be sent as an email to the user
If you are trying to generate a CSV export from the EC2 List of Instances report with more than 500 instances, CloudCheckr will now generate that CSV in the background and deliver the export to your inbox.

New Tag Mapping capabilities
CloudCheckr now allows you to map any of your current cost tags to a user-defined Key and Tag. This allows you to roll up cost assigned to multiple tags, reassign costs mistakenly assigned to the wrong resources, and create new tagging structures that do not exist in AWS. A common use case for this feature is combining all of your environment | production and ENVIRONMENT | PRODUCTION tagged costs into a single tag. You can create and manage these mappings within the Settings menu.

New CSV export formats for:

  • EC2 Security Groups
  • DB Security Groups
  • Tagged Resources

Moved RDS Security Groups, EC2 Security Groups, and VPC under Security in the Menu.

14 new best practice checks:

  • S3 Buckets That Allow Everyone Access to CloudTrail Log Files
  • S3 Buckets That Allow Everyone Access to Billing Reports
  • S3 Buckets That Allow Everyone Access to S3 Log Files
  • S3 Buckets That Allow Everyone Access to CloudFront Log Files
  • Failed Logon Attempt in AWS Management Console
  • Password Attack in AWS Management Console
  • StopLogging Events Found In CloudTrail
  • Excessive Costs Incurred For A Glacier Restore
  • Scheduled Maintenance For RDS DB Instances
  • SES Email Addresses Not Utilizing DKIM Signing
  • SES Domains Not Utilizing DKIM Signing
  • SES Email Addresses With Failure Status
  • SES Domains With Failure Status
  • Maintenance Events Scheduled For EC2 Instances

September 16, 2014

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Tuesday, September 16, 2014. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

New improved reports navigation
The report navigation on the left-hand side of the screen has been completely reorganized to make navigation easier. All reports now fall under one of six categories:

  • Best Practices – where you will find compliance policies and best practices.
  • Alerts – where you build, manage, and view the results of your alerts.
  • Cost – now contains your AWS Billing reports, spend analysis reports, and reserved usage reports.
  • Inventory – you will now find the Inventory Summary (previously Dashboard), Custom Reports, and Trending reports within this report group.
  • Security – CloudTrail and Change Monitoring have been moved under Security.
  • Utilization – this grouping still contains all of your reports based on resource utilization.

NOTE: At the bottom of the new report navigation you can click the “View the Legacy Navigation” link to revert this view to the previous version.

Alerts can be sent to AWS SNS topics or PagerDuty
When configuring any of your alerts, you know have the option to have the alert sent to an AWS SNS topic or to PagerDuty.
NOTE: Your IAM credentials connected to your CloudCheckr account must have sns:publish permissions to deliver an alert via an SNS topic.

CloudTrail alerts added (BETA)
In the alert builder you will now see an option for “CloudTrail” within the Alert Type dropdown. This allows you to be alerted when a specific event, or event type occurs in your AWS account.

Multiple thresholds allowed in cost alerts
When configuring your cost alerts you can now set multiple thresholds. This will allow you to configure a single alert that will be triggered when your costs exceed 50%, 75%, 90%, and 100% for example. Previously this would have to be done using four separate alerts.

Cost alerts can now be triggered based on a daily budget
You can now configure an alert that is based on a daily budget (as opposed to monthly). When creating your alert, simply choose the Daily Budget option.

Improved support for handling CloudTrail aggregating into a single S3 bucket
When setting up an aggregate CloudTrail within a Multi-Account View, CloudCheckr will now filter the aggregated events down into the appropriate general account, allowing you to see the Events in those accounts, as well as the Multi-View Account.

Enhanced EC2 Security Group export
When looking at the EC2 List of Security Groups report, you will now see a CSV export option with a + symbol. This is an enhanced CSV export of the report, breaking some of the data into their own cells to make it easier to read and process.

Added email support for the Idle EC2 Instances report
The Idle EC2 Instances report can now be delivered on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. The report, which can be found under the Utilization > EC2 menu, now has an Email button where you can configure the email frequency and recipients.

Added Monthly aggregating in Advanced Grouping reports under AWS Billing
The Advanced Grouping reports now have the option to group and/or aggregate costs by month.

Improvements to the CloudCheckr API

August 28, 2014

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Thursday, August 28, 2014. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Added Saved Filters to Advanced Grouping report for Multi-Account Views
The Advanced Grouping (w/tags) report within Multi-Account Views now supports saved filters. In addition to remembering your filter configurations, the cost data will also be pre-saved, allowing your data to be retrieved quickly.

Added Consolidated Billing Summary report for Multi-Account Views
Multi-Account Views now include the Consolidated Billing Summary report, which shows the total daily and month-to-date cost, credits, and net bill (as well as other key statistics) for each account included in the Multi-Account View.

Added pagination to the CloudCheckr API
The CloudCheckr API now supports pagination, providing a token to get the next batch of results.

Added appropriate GET and POST functionality to the CloudCheckr API
The CloudCheckr API now supports GET and POST functionality.

Added new Reseller Monthly Summary report
This new report provides high-level statistics to outlining the monthly reseller activity, including reserved instance savings.

Updated Report Navigation
Created a new Reseller section for the Invoice Generator, Reseller Monthly Summary report, and the Savings Analysis reports. NOTE: This section is only visible when looking at a master payer account in CloudCheckr. It will not display for pay accounts.
Renamed many of the Inventory Details reports. Example, EC2 Details is now EC2 List of Instances.

Added Daily Alerts for AWS Cost
In the Alert Builder you can now build a daily alert that alerts you when your day-to-day costs exceed your user-defined threshold.

Improved performance of loading screens and filters

New Best Practice check:
Root User Accessing AWS Account

August 08, 2014

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Friday, August 08, 2014. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Added Advanced Grouping (w/ tags) to Multi-Account Views
Multi-Account Views now have the Advanced Grouping (w/tags) report, allowing you to generate cost reports across multiple, separate consolidated accounts.

Added field for AWS Account ID into Best Practice Report CSV export for Multi-Account Views
When you export the details of a best practice check from a Multi-Account View into a CSV, you will now have a column showing which AWS Account ID the resource belongs to.

Added the report Partner Profit under AWS Billing
The Partner Profit report is designed to allow you to quantify the difference between List Cost and Unblended or Blended Cost for an AWS Bill. This information helps AWS resellers to manage and optimize the cost and profit of their business. You can find this report within the AWS Billing reports.

New type Percent for Custom Charges in the Invoice Generator
When generating Invoices you can now choose to have all costs in the invoice increased by a user-defined percent, in addition to a fixed charge. The Invoice Generator is found under the AWS Billing menu.

Improved UI from Invoice Generator
The Save Customer Information tab within the Invoice Generator was given an update to make adding and managing custom charges easier. The Invoice Generator is found under the AWS Billing menu.

Improved management of Account-Level Tags
Within the Multi-Account View you can now easily see which accounts are being funneled into the Multi-Accout View. You can also now quickly delete Account-Level Tags.

Increased the maximum length of Account names to 30 characters

July 24, 2014

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Thursday, July 24, 2014. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Added the AWS account ID to the EC2 RI Details CSV Export
CSV Exports from the EC2 Reserved Instance Details report will now include the AWS Account ID where the RI was purchased.

Export multiple accounts at once using Invoice Generator
The Invoice Generator now gives you the ability to export invoices from multiple accounts at once into CSV or PDF format. The Invoice Generator can be found within the AWS Billing menu.

Autocomplete capabilities for resource ID in the CloudWatch Historical Export report
When entering resource IDs into the CloudWatch Historical Export report, CloudCheckr will now match your entered text with your resources to make searching easier. You can find this report under the Resource Utilization menu.

Change Monitoring for CloudFront, Redshift, CloudFormation, Route53, SNS, SQS, and VPC
Added Change Monitoring support for those 6 new services.

Email capability to the S3 Cost Storage Report
You can new receive a daily, weekly, or monthly S3 Cost Storage report via email. This email can be configured within the S3 Cost Storage report, which is under the Cost > S3 menu.

3 New Trending reports added to Multi-Account Views
Multi-Account Views now have EC2 Instance History by Time, EC2 Instance History by Pricing Type, and the EC2 Other trending reports. These can be found within the Multi-Account View under the Trending menu.

6 new best practice checks for SQS and SNS

  • SNS Topic not using HTTPS
  • SNS Subscriptions not using HTTPS
  • SNS Topic not set to Limit Subscriptions to HTTPS
  • SQS Queues With Permission To Everyone
  • SNS Topics That Allow ‘Everyone’ To Publish
  • SNS Topics That Allow ‘Everyone’ To Subscribe

Added 10 new Cost reports, based on Detailed Billing data

  • S3 Cost Summary report
  • RDS Cost Summary and Details report
  • ElastiCache Cost Summary report
  • CloudFront Cost Summary and Details report
  • DynamoDB Cost Summary and Details report
  • Glacier Cost Summary and Details report

–All of these reports can be found under the Cost menu.

Services in the navigation has been renamed to Inventory

Map Overlay and Dashboard have been grouped together in the navigation

New IAM Groups Report
This new report provides the policies and IAM users associated with each IAM Group. You can find this report within the Inventory > IAM menu.

New IAM Roles Report
This new report provides the policies associated with each IAM Role. You can find this report within the Inventory > IAM menu.

June 27, 2014

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Friday, June 27, 2014. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Renamed two reports under the Cost section
Both the EC2 and S3 Cost Summary reports have been renamed “Summary (Static View)”. This was done because we are adding new Cost reports that are based on your actual costs, taken from your AWS Detailed Billing reports.

Added new S3 Storage Cost Report
This new report will show you your actual Standard, Glacier, and Reduced Redundancy Storage costs for each of your S3 buckets over a user-define time range. This report can be found within the Cost > S3 menu.

Added new EC2 Cost Summary Report
This new report provides a breakdown of the costs associated with running your EC2 instances, including EBS Volume, Load Balancing, and Elastic IP costs. This report can be found within the Cost > EC2 menu.

Added new EC2 Cost Details Report
This new report provides a breakdown of the costs associated with each individual EC2 instance over a user-defined time range. It will show the total cost of each instance, as well as its Volume, Load Balancing, and Network costs. This report can be found within the Cost > EC2 menu.

Resource ID filtering capabilities in CloudWatch Historic Export
You can now choose to export and/or view a chart of historic CloudWatch data for a specific resource ID. This report can be found within the Resource Utilization menu.

New Resource Utilization weekly email
CloudCheckr will deliver an email providing you with an overview of your EC2 CPU and Network activity on a weekly basis. This email can be enabled/disabled within the Account Settings > Email Settings menu, within the Weekly Emails tab.

Updated Saved Filter Emails Formatting
Changed the formatting of the Saved Filter Cost emails to better display cost groupings.

June 12, 2014

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Thursday, June 12, 2014. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Added charting capability to the CloudWatch Historical Export
You can now generate a chart showing the statistics from CloudWatch within the CloudWatch Historical Export report. This report can be found within the Resource Utilization menu.

Updated most recent Trusted Advisor checks
The most recent Trusted Advisor checks will show within the CloudCheckr Best Practice report. NOTE: This only applies to AWS customers that subscribe to Trusted Advisor.

Added export capability to the CloudTrail Events report
The results from the CloudTrail Events report can be exported into a CSV file.

Removed special characters from CSV export of EC2 Details report

Support for SAML 2.0 Single Sign On in CloudCheckr Enterprise Version

Added unused filter in EC2 Reserved Instance Details report
You can now filter your EC2 Reserved Instance Details report to show only those reservations that are not fully utilized.

Added break out by service to the Consolidated Billing Summary email
The Consolidated Billing Summary email now has a section showing your daily and month-to-date costs by Service across your consolidated accounts.

Improving naming of output files from the Invoice Generator
The PDF, HTML, and CSV export from the Invoice Generator will now include the AWS Account Name as well as the AWS Account Id.

Added API functions to export CloudWatch Historical data
CloudWatch Historical data can now be exported using the CloudCheckr API.

Added ability to manage account tagging directly in Multi Account Views
Managing your account tags can now all be managed directly within the Multi-Account View. Simply click on a tag and choose which of your accounts to add or remove.

Added EC2 Instance History report in Multi-Account View
The Multi-Account View now has the EC2 Instance History report, allowing you to see exactly which instances, and number of hours, were running across your accounts at any time.

May 27, 2014

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Tuesday, May 27, 2014. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Added Filter by Tag Key to Untagged Resources Report
You can now filter the Untagged Resources report by specific Tag Keys. This allows you to find any resource that has not been tagged with a specific resource tag key. This report can be found within the Services menu.

Added CSV Export to Untagged Resources Report

Added PDF Export to the Dashboard

Added 1 or 3 year views to RDS RI Recommendations Report

Added additional details to RDS RI Recommendations Report
Additional statistics added to the RDS Reserved Instance Purchase Recommendation report to help you make more informed purchases. This report can be found within the Reserved Usage menu.

Added CSV & PDF Export to RDS RI Recommendations Report

Added 1 or 3 year views to ElastiCache RI Recommendations Report

Added additional details to ElastiCache RI Recommendations Report
Additional statistics added to the ElastiCache Reserved Node Purchase Recommendation report to help you make more informed purchases. This report can be found within the Reserved Usage menu.

Added CSV & PDF Export to ElastiCache RI Recommendations Report

Added PDF export to the Change Monitoring Report

Improved CSV Export for EC2 Reserved Instance Purchase Recommendation report
Added additional details to the CSV Export for the EC2 Reserved Instance Purchase Recommendation report

Support to handle Aggregated CloudTrail events in a single S3 Bucket
Using a Multi-Account View, you can view your CloudTrail activity across multiple AWS accounts and/or Regions by connecting CloudCheckr to the AWS CloudTrail Aggregate S3 bucket. Please see here for more information: https://support.cloudcheckr.com/configure-cloudtrail-for-multi-account-views/

Added Group By to the EC2 History by Time report
You can now group the EC2 Instance History by Time report by key statistics like AWS Account, Availabilty Zone, Platform, AMI, etc. This report can be found within the Trending menu.

CloudTrail enhancements to collect all events, not just WRITES
Previously the CloudTrail Events report would not display data from Describe* or List* events. Now ALL events will be displayed within the report.

Best Practice RI checks improved to handle consolidated billing
When viewing Reserved Instance best practice checks within a consolidated billing master payer account, the checks will actively reflect your cross-account activity.

Drilldown capabilities in Advanced Filtering report
You can now click on any day or hour within the Advanced Filtering (w/ tags) report to be presented with a pop-up giving you quick drilldown capabilities. You can easily change the grouping option, zero in on a day or hour, or filter down to whatever you clicked on within the graph.

Drilldown capabilities in CloudTrail Events report
You can now click on any day or hour within the CloudTrail report to be presented with a pop-up giving you quick drilldown capabilities. You can easily change the grouping option, zero in on a day or hour, or filter down to whatever you clicked on within the graph.

CloudTrail moved in navigation
CloudTrail is no longer within the Services menu. It now has its own report structure for quick access.

New Best Practice Checks:

  • SQS Message Queue Appears To Be Backed Up
  • ElastiCache Reserved Node Purchase Recommendations
  • RDS Reserved Instance Purchase Recommendations
  • EC2 Reserved Instance Purchase Recommendations
  • EC2 Reserved Instance Purchases With Recent Price Drop
  • Elastic MapReduce Clusters Terminated with Errors
  • Elastic MapReduce Clusters with Failed Steps
  • Elastic MapReduce Clusters without Termination Protection Enabled
  • Elastic MapReduce Clusters with Failed Jobs
  • Elastic MapReduce Missing Blocks
  • Elastic MapReduce HBase Failed Backup
  • Elastic MapReduce Open Map Slots
  • Elastic MapReduce Open Reduce Slots
  • RDS DB Instances Running Out of Memory

April 11, 2014

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Friday, April 11, 2014. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Added New CloudTrail Reports to Multi-Account Views
Multi-Account Views will now show CloudTrail Summary and Overview reports.

Added support for SimpleDB including a Summary and Details report, Dashboard entry, and Change Monitoring

Added drilldown for CloudTrail Best Practice checks
You can now drilldown from the CloudTrail Best Practice reports directly into the CloudTrail Events report.

Added filtering for Alert Results report
Alert Results can now be filtered by Alert Type, Alert Name, as well as Start and End dates. Alert Results can be found within the Alerts menu.

Added more RIO calculations to ElastiCache Reserved Node Purchase Recommendations
Additional statistics added to the ElastiCache Reserved Node Purchase Recommendations to help you make more informed purchases. This report can be found within the Reserved Usage menu.

New ‘All’ option in the Single Day Summary report
When viewing the Single Day Summary report within an AWS Consolidated Billing master payer account you can now choose to display the data for ALL accounts using the Account dropdown at the top of the report. This report can be found within the AWS Billing menu.

New ‘All’ option in the Single Month Summary report
When viewing the Single Month Summary report within an AWS Consolidated Billing master payer account you can now choose to display the data for ALL accounts using the Account dropdown at the top of the report. This report can be found within the AWS Billing menu.

Add ‘Include untagged items’ in the Advanced Grouping report
When generating a Saved Filter within the Advanced Grouping report, you can now have the report display untagged items. To use this function, simply check the “Include untagged items” checkbox. NOTE: This function only works when viewing data from a saved filter.

New ElastiCache Cost Comparison Summary and Details reports

March 26, 2014

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Wednesday, March 26, 2014. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Added 3 new ElastiCache Reserved Nodes reports
CloudCheckr now provides Summary, Details, and Purchase Recommendation reports for ElastiCache. These three reports can all be found within the Reserved Instances menu.

Added ‘All’ option to Historical 12 Month Summary Report
Customers utilizing Consolidated Billing within AWS can now choose to have their Historical 12 Month Summary report display costs for ALL of their accounts instead of individually.

Added several additional reports to the Multi-Account Views

  • 10 New EC2 Reports
  • S3 Details and Summary Reports
  • Glacier Details and Summary Reports

Improved selecting items from large lists, including Tags and Accounts in many reports
Anywhere that you are able to view and select items from a large list, such as the Advanced Filtering and Grouping reports, you can now click on the binoculars icon to make selecting from these lists much easier. You can search for specific items in a list, plus you now have the ability to select/unselect all.

Instance History now uses data from Detailed Billing reports
CloudCheckr’s Instance History will now extract the complete history of your EC2 instances, including those in payee accounts who have not been added into CloudCheckr, from the AWS detailed billing reports.

Filter individual Best Practice checks by tag
You can now choose to filter your best practice checks by one, or multiple resource tags. To filter a check, load the Best Practices report and click the tag icon to the right of any check you would like to filter. Make your tag selection and save. The next time a snapshot of your account is taken, that check will now only report on resources utilizing that tag.

List Cost improvements
List Cost now handles new and expiring reserved instances, as well as unused Heavy Utilization reserved instances.

Added 4 new API Methods:

  • add_account
  • delete_account
  • tag_account
  • untag_account

7 New Best Practice Checks:

  • Elastic MapReduce Clusters with Failed Jobs
  • Elastic MapReduce Missing Blocks
  • Elastic MapReduce HBase Failed Backup
  • Elastic MapReduce Open Map Slots
  • Elastic MapReduce Open Reduce Slots
  • RDS Reserved Instance Stuck in Payment Pending Mode
  • RDS Reserved Instance Stuck in Payment Failed Mode

March 7, 2014

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Friday, March 7, 2014. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Renamed Projects as Accounts
What was previously called “Projects” within CloudCheckr will now be called “Accounts”. This won’t impact reports or functionality, it is simply a change in the naming convention.

Added new Multi-View Accounts
Multi-View Accounts are the next generation of consolidated reports within CloudCheckr. You now have the ability to tag any of your Accounts. Those tags will be used to create a Multi-View Account which builds reports that looks across all Accounts associated with its assigned tags. To tag an Account, load the Account and go to Account Settings > Account Tags. You can assign multiple tags per Account. When creating your Multi-View Account you will select these tags.

BETA New Cost/EC2/Reversed Instances/Purchase (by Frequency) report
This new report looks at how many EC2 instances are running by instance type, zone, and platform, for each hour and determines the optimal RI purchase. It is ideal for environments in which auto scaling is heavily used, or instances are started, stopped, and terminated regularly. This report can be found within the Reserved Instance > EC2 menu.

Added MTD Amortized Costs to Summary of AWS Bill emails
The Daily and Monthly Summary of AWS Bill emails will now have a MTD Amortized Costs section.

Added Drilldowns in CloudTrail Reports and Best Practice Checks
CloudTrail reports and best practice checks will now drilldown into their appropriate reports for further information.

Added Total Summaries to the Following Reports:
DynamoDB Details, S3 Details, ElastiCache Nodes, Glacier Details, EC2 Reserved Instance Detail, EC2 Consolidated Reserved Instance Detail

Added Group By Resource ID or Instance ID in Advanced Filtering and Advanced Grouping reports
You can now group your costs in both the Advanced Filtering and Advanced Grouping reports by either Resource Id or EC2 Instance Id.

Support for Elastic MapReduce (EMR) in Change Monitoring and Map Overlay

Support for Kinesis in Change Monitoring, Map Overlay, and Dashboard

Added a Summary and Details report for Kinesis

Support for Elastic Beanstalk in Change Monitoring, Map Overlay, and Dashboard

Added a Summary and Details report for Elastic Beanstalk

Support for Simple Workflow (SWF) in Change Monitoring, Map Overlay, and Dashboard

Added a Summary and Details report for SWF

Support for Simple Email Serivce (SES) in Change Monitoring, Map Overlay, and Dashboard

Added a Summary and Details report for SES

Added 4 New Best Practice Checks:

  • S3 Public Sensitive Objects Stored
  • Elastic MapReduce Clusters Terminated with Errors
  • Elastic MapReduce Clusters with Failed Steps
  • Elastic MapReduce Clusters without Termination Protection Enabled

 

February 25, 2014

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Tuesday, February 25, 2014. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Added ability to edit the name of Alerts
You can now edit the names of your Budget, EC2, or S3 Alerts at any time by selecting your alerts within the Alerts > Manager screen.

Added new Weekly emails for Saved Filters
In addition to Daily and Monthly emails, you can now have the emails based on your Advanced Filtering or Advanced Grouping saved filters delivered on a Weekly basis. To enable the weekly email, load any of your saved filters and click the Email button to its right. The Advanced Filtering and Advanced Grouping reports can both be found within the AWS Billing menu.

Start and end dates in AWS Cost Alerts can be open-ended
When building your Budget Alerts and selecting a custom budget cycle, you can now leave the start date or end date as open ended.

Support for AWS Cost Alerts based on Saved Filters
Your Budget Alerts can now be configured using your saved filters from the Advanced Filtering report.

Added ability to set frequency for Budget Alerts
Budget Alerts can now be configured to be delivered as often as you’d like (every 3 days, 7 days, etc.). Or, you can set an alert to be delivered only once.

Added summary counts to EC2 Purchase Recommendation reports
The EC2 Reserved Instance Purchase Recommendation reports now have additional summary information showing you the number of instances NOT recommended for purchase. These reports can be found within the Reserved Instance menu, and within the Consolidated menu.

Added PDF Export to multiple detail reports
Several Details reports within CloudCheckr now have PDF exports, including EC2, S3, and RDS Details. Click the print icon in the top-right of any report to export it as a PDF.

Added totals for Advanced Grouping (w/ tags) report
The Advanced Grouping report now provides you with a total, average and daily max/min for your filter selection. This report can be found within the AWS Billing menu.

Added totals for Saved Filter emails
The emails delivered from your saved filters will now have a Daily and Month-to-Date total at the top of the email.

UI Enhancements to CloudTrail Events report
The CloudTrail Events report has been updated for ease of use. This report can be found within the Services > CloudTrail menu.

Added reports for Elastic MapReduce
CloudCheckr now has a Summary and Details report for Elastic MapReduce. You can find these reports within the Services > Elastic MapReduce menu.
Note: You will only be able to see Elastic MapReduce clusters that have enabled “Visible to all users” or that belong to the account for which you configured CloudCheckr.

Added section on Amortized Costs for Summary of Daily AWS Bill email
Your Summary of Daily AWS Bill email now has a section showing your daily amortized cost.

BETA New CloudWatch Historical Export report
The CloudWatch Historical Export report allows you to export, to a csv, the historical CloudWatch statistics for your AWS resources. You can find this export report within the Resource Utilization menu.

4 New Best Practice Checks for CloudTrail

  • CloudTrail Unauthorized Access
  • CloudTrail Access Outside Normal Business Hours
  • CloudTrail Access from New IP Address
  • CloudTrail Access from New User

February 7, 2014

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Friday, February 7, 2014. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

Added Custom Charges to the Invoice Generator
You can now add custom charges to your generated invoices using CloudCheckr’s Invoice Generator. The Invoice Generator can be found within the AWS Billing menu.

Renamed Detailed Billing Reports
Detailed Billing Analysis report is now Advanced Filtering (w/ tags)
Detailed Billing (w/ Grouping) is now Advanced Grouping (w/ tags)
Both of these can be found within the AWS Billing menu.

Moved the AWS Billing reports to the top-level menu
The AWS Billing reports are no longer hidden under the Cost menu, and are now displayed at the top-level.

Moved Reserved Instances reports to the top-level menu
CloudCheckr’s Reserved Instance reports are no longer hidden within the Cost > Service menu. You will now see a Reserved Instances menu at the top-level.
NOTE: the Consolidated Reserved Instances reports will still be listed within the Consolidated menu.

New Consolidated Best Practices report
CloudCheckr will now build a Consolidated Best Practice report that will show you the best practice results across all of your projects rolled into one report. This report, which is only available to customers utilizing consolidated reports, will be built within the Consolidated menu after your next snapshot completes.

Capability to import Trusted Advisor checks into CloudCheckr best practices
You can now view the results of your Amazon Trusted Advsisor checks within your CloudCheckr Best Practice report.
NOTE: To provide access to Trusted Advisor you must allow “support:*”, permissions on the IAM user used for CloudCheckr. Please contact CloudCheckr Support with any questions, by submitting a ticket via the CloudCheckr Service Desk Portal.

Change Monitoring linked to CloudTrail data
When you expand an item on the Change Monitoring report, you can now further expand any resource to see its CloudTrail.

Link to ignore Best Practice checks and Change Monitoring directly from the email
Your Best Practice and Change Monitoring emails will now have ignore links embedded directly into the emails. Just click the ‘X’ for the checks or resource changes you no longer want to see in your reports and those will be ignored without having to login to your CloudCheckr account.

New Relic plugin published to New Relic Plugin Central
You can now access CloudCheckr’s New Relic plugin directly in New Relic’s Plugin Central website.

Capability to edit the project name
Within the Project Settings menu of your projects, you can now edit your Project Name.

January 21, 2014

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Tuesday, January 21, 2014. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

“Edit Project” has been moved inside the project and re-named “Project Settings” to be more visible
We have made editing your projects easier by moving the menu inside your project. You now edit your project within a new section listed underneath your reports labeled “Project Settings”.

Released CloudTrail Events Report
This report allows you to see the successful events and errors logged by CloudTrail, organized by User, Event Type, Service, or IP Address. NOTE: CloudTrail must be enabled within AWS if you would like to see data within this report. You can find this report within the Services > CloudTrail menu.

Released CloudTrail Overview Report
This report provides details about all of the CloudTrails you have enabled. You can find this report within the Services > CloudTrail menu.

Improvements to AWS Bill Invoice Generator
You can now generate Detailed invoices by Description or Operation. You can also generate an invoice using AWS List Price (as opposed to Blended or Unblended Costs). You can generate invoices within the Cost > AWS Billing menu.

Improvements to New Relic Plugin
Enhancements made to the New Relic Plugin. The New Relic Plugin can be configured within the Project Settings menu.

Ignores for EC2 Resource Utilization Alerts
You can configure your EC2 Resource Utilization alerts to ignore specific instances. To do this, after your alert runs click on Alerts > Results. Locate the specific alert and instances that you want to ignore and click the ‘X’ icon. This will prevent those instances from showing up within those alert emails. NOTE: It will only impact the specific alert you have ignored the instance(s) within. If an instance is being triggered by more than one Resource Utilization Alert, you will need to ignore it within each appropriate Alert.

New option for Case Insensitive Saved Filters in Detailed Billing reports
Many AWS users have tagged resources with a Key and/or Value using different cases (example: Environment | Beta & environment | beta), and would like the costs from those tags to be combined. CloudCheckr can now configure your project to ignore cases when displaying costs for tags.

New fields on the Historical 12 Month Billing Summary
The Historical 12 Month Billing Summary report now has additional details highlighting things such as Highest Change in Monthly Net Bill and Average Increase/Decrease in Net Bill Per Month. You can find this report within the Cost > AWS Billing menu.

Added Friendly Names to multiple emails
EC2 Instance names have been added to the EC2 Alerts. AWS Consolidated Billing users will now see friendly account names when looking at cost emails and exports from their Detailed Billing reports.

Added support for RDS to List Cost
List Price for RDS will now be calculated when displaying List Price in reports and invoices.

Added option to “Exclude Tags” to Detailed Billing reports
In addition to filtering by Tags within the Detailed Billing reports, you can now choose to exclude tags from the costs displayed within the reports.

Additional Search and Filter capabilities added to for the reports EC2 Reserved Instance Details, EBS Volume Details, RDS Details, and DynamoDB Details
There are additional columns and options to filter and sort the details within the EC2 Reserved Instance, EBS Volume, RDS Details, and DynamoDB Details reports.

January 6, 2014

CloudCheckr will be performing a scheduled system update on Monday, January 6, 2014. This update will roll-out new features and reports to the application.

There is no expected service outage during this update. However, it is recommended that users clear the cache or temporary internet files of their browser after the update. All new features and reports may not appear in your account until CloudCheckr performs its next scan of your AWS deployment.

Details of the update:

New Consolidated EC2 Reserved Instance Details report
You can now see the details of all of your Reserved Instance purchases across all of your AWS accounts within the new Consolidated EC2 Reserved Instance Details report. This report can be found within the Consolidated menu.

New CloudTrail Details report
This report shows you details about each CloudTrail you have configured within you AWS account. You can find this report within the Services > CloudTrail menu.

New AWS Bill Invoice Generator
This feature, which was designed for our AWS Reseller customers, allows you to generate a Summary or Detailed invoice for each of your AWS sub-accounts. The invoice can be printed, or exported as a pdf. Before generating your invoices, be sure to upload your custom logo within the Manage Account page. The invoice generator can be found within the Cost > AWS Billing menu.

List Pricing available in Detailed Billing Analysis and Detailed Billing (w/ Grouping) reports
In addition to Blended and Unblended costs, CloudCheckr now also displays List Price when viewing your Detailed Billing data. List Pricing shows the On-Demand cost for all resources, as opposed to reserved or reduced pricing.

BETA release of Plugin for New Relic
You can now import your EC2 data from CloudCheckr into your New Relic dashboard. This can be configured within your Edit Project page.

Capability to customize parameters in the Best Practice checks
You can now change the parameters used within CloudCheckr’s Best Practice checks. For example, you can configure your checks that alert you when your Reserved Instance Purchases will expire within 30 days to alert you when they will expire within 60 days if you need additional time to make those purchases. To configure a best practice check, click the gear icon to the right of the check. You will be presented with a pop-up showing all parameters that can be modified.

Historical date on Consolidated Billing Summary report
The Consolidated Billing Summary report now has a date selector so you can view this report for any historical date where your billing data is available. This report can be found within the Cost > AWS Billing menu.

Three new Best Practice Checks:
Best Practice Check – Current AWS Service Limits
Best Practice Check – EC2 Security Groups Without EC2 Instances
Best Practice Check – EC2 Reserved Instance Payment Failed

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